Cabinet Office puts home addresses online of Elton John, Ben Stokes, Iain Duncan Smith and hundreds of others named in New Years Honours list including senior counter-terror officials
- Counter-terror specialists and senior MoD staff were included in the blunder
- The reams of personal data were uploaded on to a government site yesterday
- Cabinet said it had reported itself to the Information Commissioner’s Office
The Cabinet Office uploaded the home and work addresses of more than 1,000 recipients of New Years’ Honours, including Elton John, Ben Stokes, Iain Duncan Smith and British Bake Off champ Nadiya Hussain.
The work and home addresses of counter-terrorism officials, senior police and Ministry of Defence (MoD) staff were also included in the reams of personal data uploaded to a government website yesterday.
Among the victims of the privacy gaff were British Bake Off champ Nadiya Hussain; former Ofcom boss Sharon White; Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England; Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith; Labour MP Diana Johnson and Alison Saunders, the former director of public prosecutions.
Elton John (right) and MP Iain Duncan Smith (left) were two of the celebrities whose personal addresses were revealed on a government website by the Cabinet Office yesterday
Each had their home addresses revealed on the site.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson told the Guardian that it had reported itself to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
‘A version of the New Year honours 2020 list was published in error which contained recipients’ addresses,’ the spokesperson said.
‘The information was removed as soon as possible. We apologise to all those affected and are looking into how this happened. We have reported the matter to the ICO and are contacting all those affected directly.’
A member of the public notified the newspaper of the error.
It was live on the site for around 90 minutes before being pulled.